Spectre

Photo, self portrait.

I look for me

a poem by Marjoleine de Vos

So if I am my body

not a princess in a tower, no butterfly

unfolding from its cocoon

biology my existence, blood

breath, bowel and lung and all those toes-

how is it then that I hardly know them

the half drowned liver, the industrious kidney

that I stay ignorant of the daily struggle

in heart and carotid, the effort in my skull

for me alone while I

remain inside blindfolded

deaf for synaptic labor and neuron power

talk of my soul and bang on doors

the body closed that claims my actions

attacks me flatters and seduces me, makes me shiver

and sing and that I am, so they say.

(translated by me from Dutch to English)

Inner Landscape #16-Depth

Digital print from a pastel on newspaper paper,

the original pastel has been destroyed, 12 by 17 inches.

The Shape of Death

What does love look like? We know

the shape of death. Death is a cloud

immense and awesome. At first a lid

is lifted from the eye of light:

there is a clap of sound, a white blossom

belches from the jaw of fright,

a pillared cloud churns from white to gray

like a monstrous brain that bursts and burns,

then turns sickly black, spilling away,

filling the whole sky with ashes of dread;

thickly it wraps, between the clean sea

and the moon, the earth's green head.

Trapped in its cocoon, its choking breath

we know the shape of death:

Death is a cloud.

What does love look like?

Is it a particle, a star -

invisible entirely, beyond the microscope and Palomar?

A dimension unimagined, past the length of hope?

Is it a climate far and fair that we shall never dare

discover? What is its color, and its alchemy?

Is it a jewel in the earth-can it be dug?

Or dredged from the sea? Can it be bought?

Can it be sown and harvested?

Is it a shy beast to be caught?

Death is a cloud,

immense, a clap of sound.

Love is little and not loud.

It nests within each cell, and it

cannot be split.

It is a ray, a seed, a note, a word,

a secret motion of our air and blood.

It is not alien, it is near-

our very skin-

a sheath to keep us pure of fear.

a poem by May Swenson

The Book of Torsos #5-Hesitation

-you're not changed by cancer, you emerge-
(a line I heard in 'Four Extraordinary Women.' )
Photo, post cancer torso.

painting2cancers in the news!

painting2cancers got featured in Europa Donna Luxembourg's Newsletter #21, 2011! :)

The Wings of A Dove

-cancer-
Acrylics and resin on a mono print, 4by6. Entry for A Book About Death, Life! Entered in the permanent ABAD : Life archive as part of the Presbyterian College Art Collection, Clinton, South Carolina.

My heart is in anguish within me,

And the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

Fear and trembling come upon me,

And horror has overwhelmed me.

I said, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove!

I would fly away and be at rest."

from Psalm 55

Inner Landscape #15-Insomnia

Oils on paper, 20 by 27 inches.

I have bouts of insomnia. I blame my meds. Being kept hyper to keep the thyroid cancer under control turns against me that way sometimes. Some nights I get up and look down the moon lit street. Some nights I lie awake and find how after my cancer treatments, my old frustrations and old desires that went lurking under the surface during treatments, come stare me in the face. I could get awfully bored before cancer, deadly bored I used to say. I still have that, this inner drive to do and feel alive. During the cancer treatments, I went into basic energy mode, I turned inwards and geared towards coping and survival. Now, it seems that inner drive to live fully got much stronger, with an added sense of urgency. Insomnia sharply confronts me with time. Lost time.

Radical Acceptance-Clarity Haynes

Radical Acceptance, a show by Clarity Haynes (The Breast Portrait Project) opens tomorrow in Brooklyn. For those in the hood, I'll be there too, so to speak ;) I modeled for Clarity across the Ocean by email, sending photos of my (post-cancer) torso. Some mishap-photos I used for painting2cancers ... So, I'm proud to post about the show! Clarity says about the project:

I enjoy working with women with a wide range of body types and life experiences. Cancer survivors are just one of the groups who have found participating in the project to be a positive and emotionally healing experience. Over the past twelve years, more than 500 women have participated in the project. I’m grateful for all of the interactions I’ve had through this work -- I have learned from and been touched by the openness, courage and generosity of each model.

For more info on The Breast Portrait Project, visit:

www.bportraitproject.org

Inner Landscape #14-The Path

digital print, study for a painting. Big, probably ;)

5 years ago today I had my left breast amputated. For some reason, this year more than the previous cancerversaries, I'm actively reminiscing the events leading up to the surgeries. The events that so radically changed my body and my life.

But look :) in the photo, where the tree branches are getting entangled and you can't see which is which anymore, where the darkness is most intense, that's where the brightest light is ....

Bite Me!

-self portrait-
acrostic poem 'bite me' written for dearthyroid.org

Inner Landscape #13-Silence

Pastel on a newspaper page, 8 by 10 inches.

This is a photo of the piece, I destroyed the original page in a frenzy ;)

These days are enveloped by

Overwhelming Silence

of Unanswered Questions,

Inconsolable Sorrow

and Unfulfilled Dreams.

There only is

Raw Loneliness.

Inescapable,

Deafening

Here and Now.

Inner Landscape #12- Cancer Eye

Photo print, 8 by 10 inches.

When I was treated for my cancers, I sometimes flipped through med books in the library, staring at pictures of biopsy slides to see what the damn thing growing in me looked like. Oftentimes, I slammed the book shut, because I couldn't 'see' it, I didn't see how these color blots and lines were signs of malignant cancer. A part of me looked at them with an artistic eye? An eye for what life looks like, even if it is malignant. I thought, if you run that specimen slide through photoshop, that could make for some strong abstract. Beautiful even. I think it also works in another, twisted way. If you look around, with cancer in mind, you can see a cancer slide in almost anything. That eye can ruin your life just as much as the real stuff can. Equally harshly.

Lovers in the Lilacs*

Modified (Banksied) 'Lovers in the Lilacs,' by Marc Chagall, 1930. Acrylics on a photo. By Banksied I'm referring to Banksy, a British street artist, who clandestinely hung up some modified paintings in museums. They hung there a couple of days before being spotted. What's not to like?

Chagall is one of my favorite painters. I love his colors and the way he lightheartedly portrays love. After I had my left amputation and later reconstruction, my husband and I had a ritual I inwardly called 'le boobie assessment' (pronounced with a French accent), in which my husband-before he went on a trip for work and when he came home-would check out the appearance and healing of my scars and my new breasts. After a while, when healing wasn't so drastically noticeable anymore, we stopped doing that. But to me, and probably my husband, it was important. For me, it was also lighthearted. Lovers, bodies and sex after (breast) cancer ... Quite a delicate topic. I heard my oncologist use the word sex in this context for the first time almost 5 years after my treatment in a talk he gave to us, breast cancer patients. I don't envy his position. How do you approach that fragile topic which undoubtedly has as many shapes and forms as there are patients? For me, lightheartedly works ...
I love how they are lying there between the lilacs, also my favorite spring perfume. So, let me post this piece as my holiday wishing card. There's a stack of snow lying outside, and hopefully, warmly covered underneath, a seed is getting ready for spring.

Happy Holidays!

La Mirada #17-Desolation

Print based on a pastel painting I made after my photo Medusa, 8 by 8 inches.

Over 99% of thyroid nodules are not cancer. Whew. Papillary tumors are the most common of all thyroid cancers (>70%). Cervical metastasis (spread to lymph nodes in the neck) are present in 50% of small tumors and in over 75% of the larger thyroid cancers. The numbers place me in a very very small statistical group. My tumor was 4,5 cm, I had 3 positive lymph nodes and had a 100 millicuries RAI, a standard dose. Standard RAI doses are effective for the majority of patients with thyroid cancer, who after being administered RAI get to have undetectable marker Tg. Guess what.

Within 9 months I had two cancers. Friends, and doctors, assured me, meaning well, that I would not have a second cancer in less than a year. Kind of isolating when you're worried. I tested negative for Cowden, a rare genetic syndrome combining thyroid and breast cancer, which would have put me at a higher risk for uterine cancer. What a relief.

In Belgium we have a high detection rate with mammogram screening. I wasn't even in the target age group. Mammograms can save lives by finding breast cancer as early as possible. The key word is can. The imaging technique has its limitations. Sadly enough. Trouble started because I had felt a small hard lump in my left breast, size of a rice grain, exactly where one of my tumors was found .... The radiologist advised a biopsy, to be sure, after all, calcifications can be benign. Usually. I had three tumors in my breasts, different types left and right. What are those odds?

Doctors think statistically. Makes me think of the psychology diagnostics course I took. They teach you that if 75% of the population has brown eyes, you will be approached as having brown eyes. That's how it works. If you happen to have green eyes, tough. It's a problem, I think. It blinds doctors for the specific patient sitting in front of them, the woman whose breasts carry cancer ... It's tiring to be in a statistically small group as you are lumped into the norm that doesn't apply. Modern Experimental Science. Sad.

I'm thinking of all the women and men, whose cancer isn't detected early, who fall through the cancer cracks, through screening or otherwise. I could have been one of them. I guess I'm lucky. Sad.

Isolation Room

Digital print based on a photo of the isolation room I stayed in for 5 days for my RAI treatment. May 2005. The blue is a chair, covered in blue plastic, so as to prevent my body from leaving radioactive traces of sweat and so on it. I put it in front of the room door, which had a window in it so that visitors/nurses/doctors could talk to me via the intercom system.

I read a quote by Susan Sontag the other day on illness that describes well how, in hindsight, I sat in that room. It says:

"Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place."

After that stay I was put on levothyroxine, for the rest of my life. Since I heard I may not be rid of all cancer tissue, I think about that past cancer trajectory again ... I wrote another poem a while back, about what exactly those meds mean for me.

Death would come quietly

If I weren’t to take my meds.

Silently

Creeping

On my bed.

Vibrancy, death’s flip side:

Each day I take my pill,

Refusing to let go of Life!

Acrostic poetry DISCOVER on dearthyroid.org:

My Acrostic Poem: ILLNESS

In the hospital, the day after my thyroidectomy. Photo. March 19th 2005.

Inhaling life,
Life without my thyroid,
Life with cancer…
Never the same again.
Exhaling, letting go.
Searching to embrace a new life
Simply breathing, here and now.


my poem on dearthyroid.org

Inner Landscape #11-The Chamber

collage and pastel on paper, digital print, 8 by 10 inches.

My thyroid tumor was 4.5cm-1.8inches. That's quite a butterfly. After they excised it, it went to the lab to check which bad guy it was. I don't know what happened with the remains. Do they keep them a while, indefinitely? Do they destroy them? In the oven? Where do the ashes go then? ... For my breast tumors I had to sign authorizations so they could use the remains and some blood samples for research. Not for my thyroid. I imagine my breast tumors to be in some sterile environment, sliced and diced into specimen slides, then kept in lab drawers. For my thyroid, the image is much more obscure. I imagine it went in the oven, in a cold and desolate chamber. Dreamlike. Surreal.

Femininity #2-Silver

Oils on paper, 20 by 27 inches. An art class exercise.

I'd like to think that
I've suffered the changes
of mountain and sea,
wind and cloud.
And yet be still young,
exuberant,
unbending.

~Soyo Taeneung (1562-1649)

I'm turning gray. I didn't see it coming. They say stress and meds can make that happen. There are sturdy threads of gray-ish white showing between my brown long hair and I have two gray tresses at either side of my head that some days make me think of Frankenstein's bride's hairdo. When the light hits them, they reflect it. So, they're not gray. They're silver. I used to color my hair, to hide first gray till some months ago. I'm more into natural since my cancers ... I'd like to have a full head of completely gray long wavy hair later ... later ;) I'll be a crone.

The Book of Torsos #4-The Body-Nothing Else

Print, based on a blue pastel I made for seeking kali, 8 by 10 inches.
You can see that pastel in the seeking kali video in my side bar, it's the first image on there.

Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
~T.S.Eliot, from 'Dry Salvages.'

Antonio Damasio uses this quote in his book "The Feeling of What Happens," in which he describes consciousness and in particular its biological underpinnings. I love his books. Reading them leaves me in awe for what we (merely) are, and inspires respect for our fragility. Like I wrote before: 'The body is finite and limited. Life is fragile and precious.' No need to elaborate on why this feels important to me against the background of 2 cancers I guess. It's Damasio's books and my Buddhist background that inspired the title of my blog the body-nothing else.

two cancers gave me-

I've come to think again about what these cancer trajectories have given me in terms of vitality... Quite a lot. I want the pieces of my (he)art to travel, all over the globe to lead a life of their own amongst friends and people I feel connected to-and I've been given lots of those too.

Well ... it's all happening!
One of the pieces I submitted to an art call by Mobius.Inc in Boston, MA, The Prostitution of Art, made me feel all of that amplified. Funny how that happened. I've participated in many a call so far and many a piece of mine traveled. You can check my log Art on the Road ;) My friend Bill Evertson went to the opening and shared a video about the exhibit, co-curated by another friend of mine Jane Hsiaoching Wang and watching it, I just felt a part of the whole thing ...

Here's my piece, I used a drawing I made when I was in my teens, measuring with Da Vinci ;) I shot it on our ironing board, which to me funnily fits with the theme of the show and then photo-shopped over it.

And here's Bill's video, my piece is at 1.28 in the video, in the magazine Mobius prints for the show :)

You know what? I'm damn proud! & Happy! & Grateful!

The Art Cure

The Art Cure is a breast cancer awareness art project conceived by international artist and photographer, Tatiana von Tauber-whom I also would like to submit to my other blog the body-nothing else myself ;)

The Art Cure's focus is to introduce the power of art in healing and coping with the dark sides of life while raising funds for charity. Breast cancer victims and survivors are invited to paint a canvas for a silent auction with proceeds benefiting breast cancer awareness and research.

Friday, October 1, 2010 is The Art Cure’s projected opening at Horizon Gallery in downtown Savannah, GA for invited guests and press. Sunday, October 3, 2010 is planned for a public reception. For more information visit the official blog:

theartcure.blogspot.com

I decided to donate Elysium:

You can click the image to see the post & opening bid for the silent auction on The Art Cure's blog.

The deadline for sending works is September 26th. Info here. Still time!

In the meanwhile two of my friends, Kathleen McHugh and LuAnn Palazzo generously donated a piece to be auctioned off-clicking their names will take you to their pieces on The Art Cure's blog. But also: they both dedicated their work to me ... and I was moved to tears. Love you both! XXX